Not an April Fool's Joke: The Peace River Bus is Done

Peace River's innovative transit system is finished, and this was abruptly brought home tonight when I spoke with a young couple who have relied on the bus for years. They are tremendously disappointed with this decision by our Town Council. In fact, I haven't spoken with anyone in weeks who thought this was a good idea. The Chamber of Commerce didn't think it was a good idea. Just who is Council listening to, besides the taxi drivers?

And as of tomorrow, the lives of this couple will once again contract to the East side of the river, to wherever they can get to by foot (he will push her in a wheelchair), and finding rides from others. Gone is the freedom and dignity they've enjoyed to choose when and where they went in this sprawling town, for an affordable price.

They and others will have to scramble to find rides to work, to college, to daycare, to get groceries, to get to the doctor or hospital. Back to having to depend on friends, scrounging rides as they can get them, or paying expensive cab fares.

And if Deputy Mayor Darling's still-in-development plan is eventually implemented, they may have the opportunity to get subsidized taxi passes if they can prove they belong to some less fortunate group that he has deemed worthy of this help.

How demeaning and disempowering. "Here's my T4 to prove I'm among the working poor;" "Here's my AISH status, my birth certificate ...") On the bus, everyone was equal and you didn't have to prove you were eligible to ride.

And now our Mayor is trying to blame staff because there hasn't been a "seamless transition" to some as-yet-to-be-decided alternative. How noble.

Has there been clear direction to staff from this Council in the form of a motion? Has Council ever clearly articulated to the public that the Town was working on something to replace the bus--if so, this is news to the riders and the concerned members of the Peace River Transit Stakeholder's Group. Why was Deputy Mayor Darling dabbling with an "enhanced" taxi pass scheme if staff had been directed to do this?  And why did NADC withdraw from doing a proper a transit study? So many questions, so few real answers. So much for transparency.

What a sad day for our town--Peace River was actually starting to look like a progressive place that welcomed all kinds of people and considered the quality of life for everyone. Now? Not so much.

Tell Alberta Views About Peace River (deadline Tuesday, March 29)

Alberta Views magazine has an interesting monthly feature on communities by postal code and next up (for the June issue) is T8S--Peace River! It would be great to see a variety of responses from our residents.

You are asked to respond to three questions:

(1) What do you love about your community?

(2) What do you, well, not love so much?

(3) What would you love to change?

Submit your responses to Peter Worden at peterw@albertaviews.ab.ca by Tuesday.

Town of Peace River Parks & Trails Public Consultation

The Peace River Community Services Department invites community input into the proposed Parks and Trails Development Plan. Read over the plan, then share your thoughts on trails, parks and playgrounds with the public input form and at two drop-in opportunities:

Thursday, February 10 between 4:30 and 7:00 p.m. at the Kinsmen Arena

Saturday, February 12 between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. at Riverdrive Mall

Peace River Public Transportation: Mixed Messages

The Support the Bus meeting on Monday night was an exciting show of community mobilization. Erin Steele has an informative overview ("Community rallies around bus issue") in this week's Record-Gazette, so I'll keep my comments to what I observed and what I've been thinking about since Monday night.

Beyond the courage it took for many of the people to get up and speak to a crowd of this size (bravo for them!), a number of things stood out for me: 

Cohesion: This is not yet a cohesive Council and might never be. There was no coherent message that told me these policy-makers had truly considered the pros and cons of this decision. Each person who spoke seemed to have a bit of the picture, but no one presented a full one. And the concerns I had back in October (Builder or Divider?) still hold true based on what I saw on Monday and in previous Council meetings.  

Mixed Messages: Mayor Mann started out his comments by saying that Council hadn't cancelled the bus service, but rather it was that the current contract wasn't working. I doubt this nuanced distinction was very comforting for the people in the audience who had just bared their vulnerabilities by describing how not having a bus would affect them. The comment raised the question in my mind as to whether Council or Town staff are negotiating with another provider? If so, let's hear about it, in the spirit of the "transparency" that we hear Mayor Mann wants to see (such as with the airport negotiations) and so people can stop worrying about April 1.

However, despite the Mayor's comment, others appear to support the decision to give notice on the contract solely from a financial perspective, saying that the service is too expensive for the number of people who ride it. Councillor Lafontaine said it "stood out like a sore thumb" when Council first reviewed the budget. If that's the case, why summarily cancel without going back to administration for other ideas, suggestions for creating efficiencies, etc.? The arena also stands out like a sore thumb when you look at what it costs, but it's unlikely that Council would decide to shut it down without checking first with staff and user groups. This seemingly hasty decision was done around the same time Council was busy getting rid of its highly competent CAO. She might have provided valuable guidance about how best to address the issue in a way that would not result in widespread public backlash.

But back to the question--which is it? Is it just a case of a contract that isn't working and that could perhaps be fixed so people will still have transportation on April 1, or it is a big ticket service that Council (or some of Council) isn't prepared to continue to support?

Where's the plan?  The decision to cancel the bus service (sorry, cancel the contract) appears to have been done with no plan in place and none developed since. If there IS a plan, it is not being communicated to those most interested—the riders, employers whose employees rely on the service and various service providers. And there was scant indication on Monday that Council cared much about what impact their decision will have on regular riders. Empathy and solutions were in short supply.

This decision was made quietly in December without any communication until mid-January. We heard the suggestion on Monday that a committee could be set up to secure funding and run the service. If Council thought that was a good idea, perhaps it could have directed Community Services to set up a consultation with stakeholders early in January. I find it discouraging to have this tossed back to volunteers in such a cavalier manner and with so little time left to plan.

Where is the professional guidance? Why is Council making this kind of decision apparently all on its own? Where was the involvement of the Town's professional staff? Has the Director of Community Services been completely sidelined in all of this? If she wasn't she invited by Council to speak to the issue on Monday, then why not?

Mayor Mann's comment that this council has experience in business and budgets and that it will “go through the budget line-by-line” showed an astonishing lack of understanding about the role of Council. In my world, this is called micro-management. Do the Mayor and councillors want to both govern and manage? That’s never a good mix.

The Town has qualified, professional staff whose job it is to plan and bring forward ideas and budgets for Council to consider and to take Council's ideas and figure out how to implement them. A municipality is a complex set of businesses from museums to recreation to water and sewer. Councillors are amateurs and they are part-time and ought not to be meddling in the day-to-day management of the corporate body. Their knowledge and expertise is far more suitably applied, with the help of staff, to high level thinking about future direction and priorities, reflected in the policies they set, not wasting their time and that of staff going though a budget line-by-line.

Who does the Town exist to serve? One councillor apparently said that "the taxpayers wouldn't like it" if the bus service was retained. Hmmm, does the municipality exist only to serve taxpayers? (And don't renters pay taxes indirectly?)

Mayor Mann referred several times throughout the evening to the "core business" of the Town. I agree that roads, sewer and water are important, but I'll remind him that people don't tend to move to a community or decide to set up a business because the place has great roads. The quality of life available to residents--those with money and those without--is a major factor in relocation. And good quality of life for all requires some spending as well as leadership from the municipality to build a diverse community that "fosters rich cultural, social, educational, and economic opportunities for ALL" and where "we take pride in our safe, healthy and environmentally friendly community where we live, play and work cooperatively with our neighbours" (Peace River Vision Statement, 2009).

Surely this Council doesn't intend to convey the message that Peace River really doesn't care about people who are not taxpayers! Unfortunately, this decision and the lack of follow-up to help those who rely on the service does tend to send out this message.

I hope I'm wrong, but I got the sense that Council has no intention to revisit this decision. Yet nothing much was offered to the concerned residents in attendance or those who signed the petition except platitudes about how hard it is to make choices and old ideas that toss the matter back to the community to solve (and with not enough time to do anything).

Is this what being fiscally conservative means--just cut and damn the consequences? It was a highly unsatisfying response from a group of smart men who ought to be able to do better than that. And I didn't once hear the Mayor ask his favourite question: "How can we help YOU?"

Public Meeting to Support the Peace River Bus: January 31, 2011

Following is more information about the public meeting on the cancellation of the Peace River bus service.

 

7:00 PM  Monday, January 31, 2011

Belle Petroleum Centre

Call 780 624-4800 if you need a ride. Bus service will be available after the meeting.

 

Format of the Meeting

• The meeting is being facilitated by Larry Stewart from the Department of Culture & Community Spirit
• Those present will be given the chance to explain by speaking or writing how the bus cancellation will affect their lives (written comments will be read out at the meeting).
• If you cannot attend the meeting but want your story included of how the bus service cancellation will affect you, your family, your business, or your community, send an e-mail  to Joan Wahl at jfwahl@telusplanet.net and it will be read at the meeting.
• There will also be a chance to write out questions, which will be read out, for the Town Councillors who attend the meeting.
• Questions about the meeting or format: Call Joan at 780 624-2369 or e-mail at the above address.

Plan to attend if you have an interest in retaining this important service. Bring a friend. And if you can't attend, but want to be heard, be sure to send an email to Ms. Wahl.

 

Further Thoughts on Bus Service Cancellation

I've been working on the issue of a lack of transportation options in Peace River for nearly 10 years. When the health centre moved from the South Side to the West Hill, some clients of the prenatal nutrition program that I worked with had difficulty getting to appointments because they now needed to take a cab, which was expensive for anyone on a low or fixed income. The program assisted by paying cab fares, but  we could see that this would not be sustainable for long given the program's small budget.

I then chaired the Peace Regional Transportation Committee when I worked for the Peace Health Region and conducted a small study about the issue. The study, and advocacy by Fairview College, the Women's Shelter, and the PDD (Persons with Developmental Disabilities) board among others, helped convince Town Council to start a bus service.

Unfortunately, the service suffered from uncertain year-to-year funding and it was difficult for Community Services to promote or develop the service when it could be easily cancelled. The former Council gave the service a five-year funding window to prove itself, but the present Council decided, apparently based solely on financial considerations, to cancel the service halfway through that window, effective March 31.

If it's true that Council considered only the cost of the service, does that show a good decision-making process? The bus service is an easy target because it is a contract, the riders don't tend to be people with a big voice, and if you don't personally use something, it's very easy to think that something is underused, too expensive, or not necessary.

Not to say that there isn't room for improvement to the service, but to summarily cut without exploring options? Good public policy work requires more than a knee-jerk reaction to a budget that is larger than you'd like. The budget deliberation process is a time for Council and staff to discuss, explore options, run scenarios, consider what is necessary and what is not, and consider what could be improved or done differently. This is a Community Services program, so why would Council make a decision about one of its programs apparently without input from the department or its board? Why cancel without a proper evaluation?

Public transit is never inexpensive and is always supported by tax dollars, just like arenas, swimming pools, and other municipal services. If Peace River's transit service broke even, or even came close, it would probably be the first in the world to do so.

Other than financial, Council might have considered that most public housing units and apartment buildings are located on the East side of the river, while Northern Lakes College and most of the grocery stores and fast food restaurants (important sources of employment) are on the West side.

If you've ever walked or cycled from the East to the West side, even in the summer, you'll know that it's a long and arduous journey. But a taxi ride could cost upwards of $20 one-way. If you're a student or working in a lower-wage job, could you afford to spend $40 a day on transportation? (Last week's Peace River Record-Gazette had an informative article on the issue that highlighted comments from some users of the service.)

Council is suggesting that the Town's taxi pass program is available and could perhaps be increased. The people riding the bus now wouldn't qualify for taxi passes. And if passes were offered more broadly, I suspect it wouldn't take long to run up considerable costs. If Council is prepared to subsidize more taxi rides, why not just continue with the bus service, which is also a local business and employer?

Mayor Mann ran on a platform of listening to "elders, youth and everyone in between" and with a commitment to ask the question "How can we help YOU?" It's an excellent question, but only if it is asked of everyone.  I hope there is a strong Council presence at the public meeting on January 31 to hear from people about how Council can help them.

Peace River's Bus Service Cancellation: Petition locations & public meeting

If you're concerned about Council's decision in December to cancel the Peace River bus service, you have a few options:
  
Petition: This petition asks Town Council to revisit the decision, but is not one that will be legally-binding, since those take enormous effort because of the requirement for each signature to be witnessed and the witness swearing an affidavit. But the organizers hope it will give Council an indication of interest in the issue.

There are 32 petition locations. Here are a few--if you care about the loss of the service and are a resident of Peace River, be sure to make an effort to sign:

In the Downtown area:

• A&W
• Value Drug
• The Bargain Store
• Liquidation World
• Sagitawa Friendship Centre
• The Dollar Store

On the West Hill:

• No Frills
• IGA
• Shopper's Drug

In the North End:

• Sugar Plum Tree Daycare

Public Meeting: A public meeting is scheduled for Monday, January 31, 7:00 at the Belle Petroleum Centre. This is an accessible location (unlike Council Chambers). Transportation will be available. The organizers hope that Mayor and councillors will attend. People who are affected by the service cancellation will have the opportunity to speak to the issue, and all points of view will be welcome during this facilitated discussion. More details coming.